SpareFoot Acquires SiteLink to Drive Innovation for the Self-Storage Industry [Press Release]

Sue_C

Austin, Texas -- March 29, 2018 -- SpareFoot, the world’s largest online self-storage marketplace, has agreed to acquire SiteLink, a leading provider of cloud-based software solutions for the self-storage industry. The deal will bring together two dynamic companies and allow the combined business to accelerate investment, drive innovation and generate value for both consumers and facility operators in the $38 billion self-storage industry.

Cove Hill Partners, a private equity firm based in Boston, will acquire a majority stake in both businesses. SpareFoot CEO Chuck Gordon will become CEO of the combined company, and Ross Lampe will remain President of SiteLink with his team continuing to serve self-storage customers. The transactions are expected to close in the next 30 days, subject to customary closing conditions.

The combined company will draw upon a strong team of experienced and talented employees, existing product integration and established personal relationships between the two businesses, and a shared mission to serve self-storage operators and consumers with a best-in-class experience.

“We’re excited to combine two of the most respected and successful technology companies in self-storage,” said Chuck Gordon, CEO of SpareFoot. “This deal and partnership with Cove Hill allows us to increase investment in our products to help self-storage operators run their businesses cost-effectively and help consumers find the perfect storage solution.”

“We have a unique opportunity to deepen our existing product integration and accelerate innovation,” said Markus Hecker, COO of SiteLink. “We remain committed to delivering value and will use our combined resources to help our customers grow their businesses.”

The strategic partnership will enable SpareFoot to find and deliver more tenants to facilities on its network and will accelerate technology investments at SiteLink; this includes myHub development, SiteLink Merchant Services and SiteLink Web Edition, its flagship product.

William Blair served as exclusive financial advisor to SpareFoot.

About SiteLink
SiteLink is a global leader in self-storage management software and in-house payment processing. Profit tools, integrations, quality service and regular updates make SiteLink the favorite of single and multi-store businesses, including most top 100 self-storage operators. In 2014, SiteLink Merchant Services was introduced to integrate payment processing into SiteLink’s self-storage management software. In addition, dozens of SiteLink Marketplace partners like web designers, call centers, kiosks, insurance providers and more are tightly integrated into SiteLink’s robust technology. The company was founded in 1996 and will remain headquartered in Raleigh, North Carolina.

About SpareFoot
SpareFoot was founded by Chuck Gordon and Mario Feghali from their dorm room at UCLA, and has grown to become a leading online marketplace for consumers to find and book self-storage. SpareFoot offers consumers the ability to find storage facilities, compare deals, and book seamlessly across more than 12,000 facilities in the U.S. on SpareFoot.com and SelfStorage.com. The company was founded in 2008 and is headquartered in Austin, Texas.

About Cove Hill Partners
Cove Hill Partners is a long-term oriented private equity firm focused on partnering with outstanding management teams to build market-leading consumer and technology companies. The firm was founded in 2017 by seasoned private equity investors to invest their personal capital alongside a small group of likeminded investors. The team currently manages an inaugural fund of over $1 billion with an innovative structure that provides the flexibility to enable a patient, concentrated and value-add approach in a small portfolio of long-term investments.

Contacts:
Direct media inquiries to Jodi Bart Holzband at jholzband@sparefoot.com.
Direct SpareFoot client inquiries to support@sparefoot.com and SiteLink client inquiries to acquisition@sitelink.com.

Ron

I really hope they do not push integration with an aggregate service. I do not want to pay for a competitors advertising.

Sue_C

Hi @Ron, thanks for the comment! You can reach out to either team with questions: acquisition@sitelink.com or support@sparefoot.com, or call us at 1.919.865.0789 x 2 (SiteLink) or 1.855.427.8193 x 2 (SpareFoot). 
SpareFoot and SiteLink will remain separate, so it’s business as usual. Feel free to keep the conversation going

i43storage

I agree with Ron.  I do not pay now for third-party businesses to rent my units and frankly am tired businesses such as SpareFoot calling and pretending to want to rent only to try and sell me their product; I certainly don't want to be pushed into using them.

Ron

"drive innovation"....which I fear means Sparefoot will have my data whether I want them to or not. Those who use Sparefoot will know occupancy, and rates of neighboring facilities and they can decide to build a competing facility. That might seem like a stretch, however an aggregate service does not buy data to not use it. 

As far as calling the numbers, we all know the song and dance we will get. "Nothing will change, we will remain separate" , which calls in to question the phrase used, "drive innovation". 

teamcapitola

I'm Sorry. I was going to keep my mouth shut, but I have to say it.

 I have had NOTHING but bad experiences with Sparefoot; up to the point where my company threatened to sue if they ever contacted us again!

When they were doing their aggressive sales pitch we would get them calling 10-15 times a day. Rude, slimy, and many other descriptive words I won't type here!

At one point, after the 5th time I said no, the sparefoot guy tried to email my shareholders to tell them how "poor of a manager (I) was, and said no to 20 confirmed rentals"

We called lawyers after that.

 I totally agree with @ron & @i43storagecomments.... 100%.

Unfortunately, every time I have spoken with or had dealings with Sparefoot has left a bad taste in my mouth.

Every one of my local peers (who's company used Sparefoot services) constantly complained about fake reservations, dubious accounting methods, etc.

They are the absolute antithesis of Sitelink's excellent service and support. 

Just in case anyone from Sparefoot has something to say, here is an actual email they sent. Talk about slimy. The Shareholders backed me 100% by the way.

I had already politely explained that we decided not to use their services...5 times. He kept calling, and calling, and calling. Finally he tried to "go over my head" with the following. 

_______________________________________________________________________________________

From: Gary 
Sent: Wednesday, May 22, 2013 1:47 PM
To: manager@capitolaselfstorage.com
Subject: Josh/MGMT - could you have the owner contact me please?

 

Hello I just called and talked to Joshua about some customers of mine I was looking to send over for self storage and was hung up on twice, this is more of a heads up and I thought the owner may want to know or even contact me to talk about this.   I do not feel comfortable sending my clients over there at this point if they will be treated the same!

Thanks for your time and if you would like to address this my direct contact information is below.   We work with 9 facilities in your are (30 mile radius) and your web-site and facility looks very nice but this is a HUGE concern to me.   Thanks again enjoy the long weekend.

-- GARY
SpareFoot
-----------------

HDMize

Wouldn't you be more concerned with them poaching your clients? They have access to there address and phone numbers. If you don't sign on with them and they need clients in your area??? I can see them getting a card in the mail. That might be a little far fetched but this seems to me to be a merger of 2 company's with 2 different sets of ways to do business. It will be interesting to watch.  

i43storage

"Hello I just called and talked to Joshua about some customers of mine ..."

Every time they call and say they have customers for me I say the same thing - very politely - , "Well, by all means, have your customers call me.  I'd be happy to rent them a unit."   That is the point where they turn into Team Cap's "Rude, slimy, and many other descriptive words I won't type here!"

I continue to remain very leery of this merger.  I want nothing to do with Sparefoot and certainly do not want them near my data nor my pocketbook.

Mario_F

Hi all. I’m Mario Feghali, co-founder of SpareFoot. A few things I’d like to address. First, we welcome having conversations about data privacy with you all. It’s difficult to have those conversations on an open forum, so please reach out to SiteLink (919.865.0789 x 2) or SpareFoot (855.427.8193 x 2) and let’s talk. Second, it’s no secret our sales team was aggressive in the past. The email posted is an extreme (and a bit embarrassing) example, and one we would never use today. The sales organization at SpareFoot has matured quite a bit since 2013 (we were still a very young company at the time). Today, we have a small sales staff and most of the facilities who come to the network sign themselves up. I can't go back and change what happened five years ago, but we've learned from our mistakes and will continue to operate with more professionalism going forward, as we have for some time. 

Whether it's about a specific event from the past or if you'd like to learn what's new today, we welcome the opportunity to have these discussions, so please don't hesitate to reach out!

Orkocean

I've used sparefoot in the past with my previous employer and the only issue we ever ran into was a rogue employee on our part who thought being high on their conversion ranking list was an "honor" and would go in after every non sparefoot lead she had came in and put them in as a sparefoot lead to show she closed more of their leads and get at the top of their list they used to send out. You can only imagine those bills..... I've had experiences with a few new companies who had their growing pains and what not, it's nice to see one of the founders come here to try and open up some dialogue for those who have had issues or concerns as not all companies own up to their missteps. It reminds me of a sign I just passed on the way to the bank and took a picture of to share with our other sites. We all are always learning and looking to better ourselves/companies but there's going to be failures along the way which all we can do is hope to learn from. No one person has the master business plan to follow so I always give props to those who try their own paths versus follow everyone elses.

karen700

 @Orkocean ...love it! I enjoy talking and learning from positive peeps! Thank you, @Mario_F for coming on board and discussing positive steps forward! I personally, have had nothing but good experiences with your company in the past five years...keep up the good work!

i43storage

Thank you @Mario_F.  Hopefully, you prove my worry unfounded; and if so, I will be the first to admit my error.  Until then, I remain cautiously optimistic.

Mario_F

Thanks @Orkocean @karen700 @i43storage. We're optimistic, too. That billboard is pretty accurate, and like Orkocean said, we've learned a lot from our stumbles along the way. SpareFoot has grown up quite a bit (we're celebrating 10 years this year!) and we're looking forward to the future. 

Have a great weekend

teamcapitola

I applaud @Mario_F coming in and posting. I truly hope everything goes as expected, and that great things come of the merger.

We all work very hard in our jobs; to have your livelihood and family threatened ....by an overzealous cold calling sales department? Not fun at all.. especially back then when I was just a new employee.

To suddenly hear that those "same people" could potentially have access to our customer & company data is a bit scary to somebody who's only experience with said company was what happened 4-5 years ago.

So, no... I lost trust in your company, can you blame me?

Forums like these are exactly where people like myself learn about other user experiences, and it's also where we (as the actual end users) can voice our concerns about things like data privacy. It shouldn't be a hard or difficult question to answer, and certainly shouldn't have to be relegated to a back room phone conversation. 

Hearing @Karen700 and @orkocean speak so well of your company does make a huge difference to me; I've followed their posts here since the start of these forums, and believe their expierences. 

Between what they've posted, and the amount of time passed, I'm willing to move forward. Especially if moving forward involves your company and substantial ROI.

I hope my experience was just a fluke and that future interactions show me value in working with Sparefoot.